


like the old gods

by softestsapphic (starscrumbling)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fenrir!Derek, M/M, Viking AU, blantant butcherized norse mythology, kind of, self indulgent, shifter!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 13:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15268407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starscrumbling/pseuds/softestsapphic
Summary: A wolf in the woods, a raven in the sky.(fenrir!derek)





	like the old gods

**Author's Note:**

> for molls   
> thanks to nat and molls for reading this so i know it’s not awful hsjskld

Steady and sure footed, the wolves race through the forest.   
A raven caws up above them, and the lead wolf skids a stop, the others racing by him.   
He howls up to the raven, to the moon, and to the distance between. 

Laying in the cove of a harsh sea, Derek’s family lives. They chase each other on the cold dunes and craggy cliffs, sand and dirt sticking to their cheeks as they nip and snarl and tumble to the ground.   
It’s peaceful, in the cove.   
So when Laura, his sister, asks him to run away to the next world, to explore and dance and meet new people, Derek hesitates. The swell and crash of the ocean, the scent of salt and family, the never ending feeling of home, it all means everything to Derek.   
Why would he go to a New World when his world was right here?   
Laura shook her head when he had explained, a small smile adorning her lips.   
“I want to go away, go explore,” she said. “I want to feel.” Derek had nodded, like he understood.   
He didn’t.   
A moon cycle later, when Laura and half of their clan, their pack, is leaving on a ship for the new world, Derek feels a pang of longing. Watching his family go to find some new adventure imbues a passing moment of uncertainty for Derek.   
But then he looks at his cove and his mother and his nieces and nephews and knows he is right where he is meant to be. 

He shouldn’t have trusted her he shouldn’t have trusted her she shouldn’t have-   
The fire consumes his village. He wants to go back, needs to, but the mountain ash keeps him out, away from his dying family.   
The wolves howl, and the humans just scream. 

When he decides to go near the towns and villages on the outskirts of his forest, he hears them calling him Fenrir, the Wolf of Ragnorak.   
He has not been in his human form since he was teen and six years. It’s been three since half of his family was lost to the sea, and the other half brought down with fire.   
He figures ‘Wolf of Ragnorak’ isn’t too bad of a title. 

There’s a witch in his forest.   
There’s a witch in his forest and Derek can barely contain the growl building in his throat, the memories of smoke and flames flickering like fire in his head.   
He chokes on his disgust, and flies through the forest, a dark blur of rage and hatred and-   
His paws fly out from underneath him as he tries to stop.   
The witch, no, boy, who sits in the clearing in front of Derek, is, for lack of a better word, memorizing. Mole spotted skin, a shock of dark hair, high cheekbones, brown eyes that have seen and know too much.   
It nearly shocks Derek back to human form, but he maintains his composure.  
Derek growls, warningly, from the shadows, and the boy lifts his head up, his eyes staring to where Derek crouches. In the sun his eyes look amber, and if Derek had a creative bone in his body, he would’ve have written paragraphs and filled pages by describing just how much the witch’s eyes sparkled.   
The witch’s eyes. Derek snarled. This was a witch, no matter how pretty.   
A lesson he had learned with far too big a price.   
The witch held his hands up in surrender, long, slender fingers pointing to the sky.   
“I mean you no harm, Fenrir, the Hell Beast,” the witchboy said. His voice, deep and soothing, sent shivers down Derek’s spine.   
“And yet you trespass into my private property,” Derek countered, baring fangs.   
The boy laughed, and Derek was worried that if he kept laughing, he may become addicted to the sound.   
Luckily for Derek, the boy’s laughter died down.   
“This is no more your land than anyone else who walks or flies through it. This is not anyone’s land but the trees and the brush that grow here.”   
The boy stood, brushed the dirt off his legs, and looked Derek directly in the eye.   
A challenge.   
Derek shifted his stance to something a bit more offensive. “I will let no mere boy walk this forest.”   
The witch narrows his eyes.   
“I am no more boy than you are wolf, Fenrir.”  
In a flurry of feathers and fabric, a raven sits where the boy stood. He caws, once, twice, and flies into the sky. 

The witch’s name is Stiles.   
It’s not his given name, but a chosen one, and Derek’s lupine tongue doesn’t say it quite right.   
He wonders if it would be easier with a set of human lips. 

Stiles as a raven flies effortlessly through the air, acting as though the wind parts just for him, as though there is nothing holding him back.   
On two legs, he is a barely container disaster. He walks the way he speaks, taking up too much space and accompanied with flailing limbs and an attention span that can’t last more than two seconds.   
Derek knows this because he watches. Stiles goes in and out of Derek’s forest, never staying in one place, constantly chattering with the local animals and game Derek hasn’t managed to scare off.   
Derek has talked to him twice more since their first meeting.   
The second time was to warn him of an oncoming storm. Stiles hadn’t appeared to possess anything that might suggest he was prepared in anyway to endure a thunderstorm, but Stiles had just smiled and told him to “Not worry about a thing, Demon Wolf.”   
The third time they spoke, Derek asked why Stiles was in the forest and not with his people, far, far away from here.   
“I’ve been sent to kill someone before they can begin the apocalypse,” Stiles says, as nonchalant as one can be about these kind of things.   
Derek frowned, or as much as he could in this shape.   
“Who were you sent to kill?” he asks, and then wonders if he’ll regret the answer.   
“You,” Stiles replies.   
Neither of them talk for a long while. They stare at the night sky, Derek in his fur coat and Stiles without his feathers.   
“Why haven’t you yet?” Derek asks, shocking both Stiles and himself with the question.   
Stiles paused, glanced over to him. “Not quite sure.”   
Derek nods.   
It’s quiet. 

It’s been three days since that conversation and Derek hasn’t seen Stiles.   
He pretends for a little while that he doesn’t care, that the silent forest isn’t unnerving, that it’s the way it should be.   
However, Derek was never very good at make-believe.  
He runs and howls, and maybe he whimpers, but Stiles isn’t there to hear it, so maybe he doesn’t. 

He finds Stiles in a net, his small, feathery body thrashing about, high above the campsite of hunters.   
Derek bristled under his fur.   
He took one step forward, then another, and-   
Derek froze.   
At the other end of the camp, tied down with an incredible amount of rope, three wolves lay, crying and whimpering. One of the hunters, the only one that seemed to be away, waved a piece of meat above their heads.   
At the sight of the other wolves, Stiles, and the shoddy excuse for a human keeping them all captive, Derek lept.   
The hunter died quickly, and his companions emerging out of their tents didn’t last much longer. Stiles cawed from his net still, but he wasn’t squirming.   
Looking at the wolves in front of him, Derek realized that there was literally no way he was going to be able to free them in this form.   
So, for the first time in three years, Derek shed his fur.   
Stiles stopped cawing.   
With shaking hands and unsteady feet, he undid the ropes holding the wolves down, inhaling sharply as the wolfsbane infused into the knots touched his skin.   
Once they were free, they crowded around Derek, nosing his hands and stomach in thanks.   
Derek nods, then turns.   
When wearing his feathers, Stiles, unless he caws or screeches, is completely emotionless. So when Derek climbs up and releases the net Stiles is trapped in, and Stiles flies out without a sound, it’s safe to say that Derek is slightly worried about his state of emotions.   
In a flurry of feathers, Stiles stands before Derek.  
“I, um, and you, and then we, but then-“   
Derek raises an eyebrow. Stiles’s cheeks flush darkly.   
Stiles throws his hands in the air. “This was a lot easier when you were a wolf and not a, you know, really beautiful, naked, um, you.”   
Derek raises his other eyebrow, but turns around to bend down and pick up a cloak from the campground. He heard Stiles make a choking noise.   
Once covered, he faced Stiles again.   
Stiles looked at his feet as though they were the most interesting thing in the world.   
Derek placed a hand on Stiles’s shoulder.   
He cleared his throat.   
“Stiles, I-“   
His voice cracked. Stiles was looking at him with those big brown eyes, mouth parted, and Derek-   
He wanted.   
They were close, getting closer. It would take no time as all just to kiss-   
“I’m, uh, really sorry to interrupt you two, but,” a voice said from behind him. Stiles and Derek jerked away from each other, quickly turning to see three people, roughly the same age as them, huddling where the wolves had stood. They had covered themselves up with various cloaks and fabrics left on the ground from the previous fight.   
The blonde girl stared directly at Derek, her companions standing behind her. Her stance was defensive, ready to fight.   
“Can you help us?” she asked.   
Derek’s eyes flashed red. 

Later, situated in front of a fire and food in their hands, the trio explains that their names are Erica, Boyd, and Isaac, and they are their own pack.   
“I’m Stiles, and this is Fe-“  
“Derek,” he interrupts. Stiles spares him a bewildered look. Derek clears his throat. “My name, my mean, it’s Derek.”   
Stiles grins at him. “I should’ve known. Fenrir doesn’t quite fit, does it?”   
Derek doesn’t quite smile, but he rests a hand on Stiles’s knee.   
They don’t stop talking for the rest of the night, Erica and Boyd telling their story and Isaac occasionally jumping in.   
It felt good, sitting in that cleaning with Stiles by his side and the three betas across from him.   
For the first time in three years, Derek feels content. 

The betas fit into the forest like they had lived there their whole lives. They chases and tussle and play, and maybe Derek feels pangs of want for his pack, but then Stiles will smile at him and Derek remembers that this is his pack. 

One night, several weeks later, Derek laid in a patch of grass, wearing his fur, while Stiles used his flank as a pillow.   
Somewhere else the betas were making trouble, but right now, this moment was just for Stiles and Derek.   
“I never asked you, all those moons ago, why you were sent to kill me.”   
Stiles stills, takes a deep breath, and tangled his fingers in Derek’s fur.   
“There was a prophecy, many years before I was born,” he began. “It told of a mage that would be born into my village, with Odin’s marks gripping their shoulders, who was sent to either destroy a loathsome, vile creature, or to help it on its quest.”   
Derek knew where the story was going. It didn’t stop him from asking, “and the creature was?”   
Stiles looked into his eyes, which Derek noted were shining with unshed tears.   
“You.”   
Derek pushed his side closer to Stiles, who took a breath and continued.  
“My mother told me that when I was born, and she was holding me in her arms for the first time, that I had black marks like raven claws on my shoulders. The seer in my village told her that I was the chosen witch, and I began training as soon as I passed my seventh birthday.  
“Th-then something happened. Three years ago a witch like no one has ever seen came to our village and burnt it down. She was completely mad, raving about ‘Odin’s chosen, the one born to kill Fenrir.’ She said that she needed him, that she needed me. She wanted to train me, turn me into the weapon I was destined to become.  
“She wanted to turn me into a monster. My father, who led my village obviously refused her, and I swear, fire started pouring from her mouth. She hurt so many people, killed so many more. I didn’t know what to do, so I started running.”   
Stiles stopped talking here, stared down at his hands like he didn’t recognize them.   
“I started running, and when that wasn’t enough, I began to fly.”   
They sit in silence for awhile after that. 

Later, Derek will shift back to human, hold Stiles’s hands, and tell him the story of the woman he shouldn’t have trusted. The woman who killed his family because she was afraid of the end of the world.   
Stiles will look into Derek’s eyes and tell him the prophecy of a wolf destined to scourge the world the way he saw fit. 

That’s the night of their first kiss.   
And their second, and third, and fourth.   
They lose count after a while. 

His betas by his side, his Stiles in front of him, Derek smiles.   
“You know,” Stiles starts, cheekily. “A little apocalypse isn’t so bad when I’m following your lead.”

**Author's Note:**

> i’m on twitter @softestsapphic


End file.
